In preparation for WMS's FQ1 2012 earnings release Thursday afternoon, we’ve put together the recent pertinent forward looking company commentary.

 YOUTUBE FROM FQ4 2011 CONFERENCE CALL

  • “We've reached an inflection point in our performance, with quarterly sequential improvement anticipated in the December 2011 to be followed by what we expect to be a return to growth over prior-year periods beginning in the second half of fiscal '12.”
  • “We expect to receive additional jurisdiction approvals for these [Portal application and WAGE-NET] products by the end of December quarter, which we expect will put us on a path to resume a more normal flow of product approvals in calendar '12.”
  • “Our focus continues to be on taking cost out of the Bluebird xD and Bluebird2 cabinets through continuous improvement initiatives, and significant progress has been made over the last 12 months.”
  • “As a result of realized cost savings to-date and further expected savings throughout the remainder of fiscal 2012, we anticipate a stronger product sales margin in the second half of the fiscal year than in the first half”
  • “We still expect that revenues for fiscal 2012 will follow the pattern of most prior years where the September quarter is the lowest and revenues build in each subsequent quarter, with the June quarter being the strongest of the year”
  • "In our Gaming Operations business, we've received initial approvals in recent weeks for five innovative new Participation games including THE WIZARD OF OZ Journey to Oz, MONOPOLY Party Train, Pirate Battle, Leprechaun's Gold, and BATTLESHIP, based on the iconic board game of the same name.  In the December quarter, in those jurisdictions where these games are approved, we are installing to refresh our installed base, replacing those games whose performance has declined over time and are now nearing the end of their performance life.  With the focus on refreshing the installed base this quarter, we expect most of these placements will be replacements and not incremental to our footprint in the December 2011 quarter, but they will be the key factor in stabilizing both our footprint and average revenue per day by the end of the quarter”
  • “We expect to resume growth in the installed base and average revenue per day in our second fiscal half”
  • “So I believe Gaming Ops is well positioned once we get through this next quarter. I would not look for any improvements in Q2; as Scott mentioned, that's really a replacement market to stabilize the installed base and the win-per-day. And then second half, we should see an uptick in both the footprint and the win-per-day, and that's what we're focused on”
  • “I think that seasonality-wise, Q2 is always a challenge with the holiday season, and so forth. Although Christmas is a great week, the month of December is not a great month. So, I would guess that I would use the word stabilized…to describe what I would look for in Q2.”
  • “From approximately 300 networked gaming machines running at 14 locations at the time of our August conference call, we now have our three Portal applications on over 480 gaming machines, and including our WAGE-NET System with Remote Configuration and Download functionality, we're now either at full commercialization or trial at a total of 29 casinos globally on over 700 gaming machines…Our goal is to have 100 casinos networked by the end of June, and that's going to be an aggressive schedule but that's our internal goal here. And going forward, you'll see some meaningful revenue beginning in fiscal '12 and beyond.”
  • “But going forward, you'll see our margins get back to the 53% to 55% over the second half of the year.”